by Ciji Ware
Lauren continued with an innocent air, “I’m sure Jack must have warned you about all this before his story was published, didn’t he?”
Serena suddenly wanted to yank the woman’s velvet headband off her head and beat her to a blood pulp. Finally, she found her voice.
“Get out,” she said, her fists curled by her side.
But Lauren merely continued to speak with a smug smile tracing her lips. “I mean, he must have prepared you for the shock of its being his own flesh-and-blood that, basically, killed your family members.”
Serena suddenly heard herself screaming, “I said, get out! Get the hell out of here, you witch!”
It was obvious, now, that Lauren had carefully planned another frontal assault on the person she blamed for wooing Jack away from her. Some way, somehow, she’d extracted from this Judy person the information she needed to mount her attack... but how did that Nervous Nelly who just left the room know about any of this? How in the world did all the dots connect? And, journalistic ethics be damned, Serena seethed, how could Jack not have prepared her for explosive information like this? Information that always had a way of leaking out to people determined to use it to their own advantage?
Meanwhile, Lauren had sauntered past Serena and strolled toward the front door of the shop that Judy whoever-she-was had left wide open when she escaped onto the street. The unwanted visitor turned to bid farewell with a triumphant expression. Serena followed in her wake and leaned against the counter where Etheline could usually be found greeting customers as they entered the establishment.
“Well, bye-bye now, Ms. Antonelli. Sorry we couldn’t order anything from you, but do accept my belated condolences for your family’s loss.”
This woman is a doctor? Serena thought, dumbfounded.
She remembered Jack or Corlis or someone saying that Lauren Hilbert was a true magnolia that had always gotten her own way—especially when it concerned her ability to manipulate men.
And when she couldn’t?
God help the rest of the world...
For several long minutes after the two women had disappeared around the corner of the building, Serena took a series of deep breaths hoping to still the pounding in her chest. She wondered, suddenly, what the experience of Lauren’s having been a nurse during the nightmare at Charity Hospital had done to her when Hurricane Katrina roared through the building filled with elderly, dying patients? How could she have become so twisted? So walled off when it came to having some empathy for the feelings of others? So incredibly messed up in her thinking and behavior?
And then Serena was struck by a startling thought.
As Rhett said to Scarlet: frankly, I don’t give a damn!
She could only hope that she’d never lay eyes on that woman as long as she lived and fought hard against an overwhelming sensation that she might, indeed, be drowning in the rising tide of Lauren Hilbert’s malevolence.
“Great piece of work, Jack,” called a fellow reporter across the newsroom as the journalist sat down at his desk for the first time that week.
“Yeah,” agreed another, two desks away, “but I’m not surprised you hot-footed it outta here as soon as we published the series. Man, the phone’s been ringing off the hook. I don’t envy the Inbox on your computer, pal.”
His editor, John Reynolds appeared at the door of his glass-fronted office.
“Did you get some rest?”
“Slept the first day and a half. Then went fishing.”
“Good.” He crooked his finger, signaling Jack should come into his office. As soon as he entered the door, his boss lowered his voice. “Your girlfriend called my office the day after Part One ran and you were gone, worried something had happened to you. I had my assistant tell her you were taking a few days off after your story ran, but didn’t say where or why. I guess you didn’t tell her you were going out of town?” he added with a skeptical lift of his eyebrow.
“No,” Jack said without explanation. After all, he’d been straight with his boss about being in love with Serena and the conflict that put him in, given the twists and turns of the Katrina anniversary series. Reynolds’ expression, however, remained mildly disapproving so Jack justified his actions with a familiar excuse. “I-I needed to clear my head and besides, my cellphone didn’t work in the swamp. I saw some texts from her just now. I’ll answer them in a minute.” He heaved a small sigh. “Have complaints been pouring in from the usual quarters?”
“Some,” Reynolds acknowledged, “but so far, nobody’s threatened suit.”
“Last I heard, truth is a defense,” Jack said, and returned to his desk that was piled high with papers.
The truth.
He hadn’t lied to Serena, but he sure as hell hadn’t told her the truth. He’d just avoided it.
He dialed her cellphone, but it went straight to voice mail. When he didn’t hear back from her within the hour, he sent a text. By four-thirty, he’d still had no reply. Just before five, he called the landline at Antonelli’s Costume Company, only to be told by the receptionist on the other end that Ms. Antonelli had instructed her to “tell Jack Durand—if he should happen to call—to please not contact her again by any means whatsoever.”
“You’re kidding!” Jack said.
“No, I’m not. Sorry, sir,” replied the receptionist, “but those were her exact words. She also said she hoped you’d respect that. Bye now.”
Jack sank back in his chair, his mind considering every word he’d just heard from the young lady who’d delivered Serena’s ultimatum. He thought back to the way he’d departed Venice that first time without telling her that Lauren Hilbert wasn’t the real reason he’d left so hastily. He knew that in Serena’s view, he’d just pulled the same act again and, even worse, disappeared for days without a word.
In his own defense, once the three-parter had closed and the lawyers finally stop pecking at his story like ducks, he was literally putting out a dial tone. He’d been so damned exhausted, he couldn’t speak to anyone. Even Serena. But he never dreamed that she would declare she didn’t wanted to see or hear from him again—ever—over something like leaving town without telling her.
A voice in his head gave him a reminder that pulled him up short.
You assumed, somehow, that dropping off the radar wouldn’t be that a big deal because you did that to Lauren many times over your years together—and she tolerated it.
He realized, now, that in the back of his mind, he’d figured Serena might be plenty steamed and let him know in no uncertain terms that he’d better not pull that sort of trick again, but to cut him off permanently like this? That he didn’t expect.
This was a very different situation, and you know it, Jackie boy. This story hit her in the gut, and you weren’t here to console her—or level with her, as you promised.
Jack stared at his phone, deep in thought. But it had to be more than wounded pride at work here. Something else had definitely gone haywire. Ice began to invade his chest despite the steamy September weather outside his window. Had she somehow guessed who one of the anonymous sources was? Had he not stated that passage in his piece in such a careful way as to protect poor Jacques’ identity? Maybe she thought Uncle Vincent was the culprit?
He quickly dialed his namesake uncle’s number and got him on the third ring. After a few pleasantries he asked Jacques if he’d received any blowback from former colleagues at the Army Corps.
“Nothing so far. I think a lot of folks expected the media to be poking around since it was the tenth anniversary and all. The guilty ones want to keep as low a profile as I do. How ’bout on your end? Any fireworks at the paper?”
“Nothing terrible here,” he answered carefully. “Well, just checking in. Let me know if you hear anything weird.”
“Will do, son. And by the way,” Jacques Durand added, “that was some amazing stuff you found out and put in the paper. Hope it does some good.”
“So do I,” he agreed and bid farewell, murmuring aloud t
o himself after he’d hung up, “and I hope the damned story hasn’t permanently wrecked my life!”
“Politely tell Ms. McCullough I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t come out front to see her,” Serena said over the phone’s office intercom to Etheline. “Just tell her that I’m tied up with a client.”
“But she’s been here twice, today,” was the whispered response, “between covering stories for WJAZ, she said.” Then Serena heard, “Wait a minute, Ms. McCullough! You can’t go back there!”
“Yes, I think I can,” Serena heard Corlis’ determined voice declare.
The next thing she knew, the reporter was standing outside the glass-fronted door to her friend’s newly declared work zone.
With a sigh, Serena opened the door and stepped aside to allow her visitor to enter. Corlis immediately closed the door and let go of her large, leather tote bag that thumped onto the floor. She shook her head.
“Okay. You’re furious with Jack—I get that—but you can’t just hide at work like this for the rest of your days. Talk to him! He sent me to tell you he wants to explain—”
“Explain what?” Serena countered, unable to keep the bitter tone out of her voice. “He belatedly wants to tell me, now, what he obviously already told you?”
“I’ll tell you exactly what he told me prior to the piece being published,” Corlis responded calmly. “He asked—and I gave him access—to some Freedom of Information Act material that WJAZ had in the archive. Because of what I learned reporting on Katrina ten years ago, I suspected he was looking to find out how involved both his uncles might have been in the design and maintenance of the levees and canal walls.”
“He had more than one uncle who helped build the goddamned levees and canals?” Serena exploded.
“Well, sort of,” Corlis replied. “One worked for the U.S. Army Corps and another was a retired barge captain who got himself put on the Levee Board that inspected things.”
“God help me,” Serena muttered. “Two uncles who caused this disaster!”
“I want you to duly note that Jack never confirmed with me exactly what he’d found. Given what I knew to begin with, and doing a search after his piece came out for Jacques’ name in the FOI docs I’d given him, I confirmed Jacques Durand’s name was, indeed, on some of the canal retrofit documents in 1982, alongside a few of the other people Jack interviewed who’d signed off on a bunch of bad stuff as well. And by the way, I have never said a word since to anyone else—not even to my own TV station, which I probably should have.”
“Except to Jack,” Serena corrected her. “You’ve talked everything over with him!”
“Well, only last night. He came to see me, very upset, asking if I’d come over and talk to you since you won’t take his calls.”
“I won’t take his calls because, even after he’d confirmed that his own uncle was definitely involved in building that flawed project that killed my brother, he kept it from me!”
“Well, he knew you’d have exactly the reaction you’re having now and he didn’t want to lose you. And besides, the lawyers had laid down their edicts which sources should be anonymous—and Jacques Durand was one of them.”
“Really?” Serena exclaimed. “But the lawyers didn’t order Jack to take a powder to catch up on his shut-eye after the pieces ran and not answer any of my calls or texts for a week!”
“Yes, he took a powder without telling you he was going to,” Corlis echoed, “and that was a very dumb move. I told him last night it was. But he didn’t answer you because there was no cell coverage in that swamp where King’s fishing cabin is, outside Covington.”
“He went fishing?”
“Look, Serena. I know you’re upset and you have every right to be, but Jack was really feeling some major stress after he filed his stories. I’ve been there myself. I know the feeling. He hadn’t slept for a week and felt he had to get away from everything.”
“And get away from me, because he probably felt guilty for not telling me about his uncle.”
“Well he did,” Corlis allowed. “Feel guilty, I mean. But remember that Jack’s not the guy who signed those documents. He just was the one with the courage to get to the bottom of what caused the collapse of the walls.”
“C’mon, Corlis! Give me some credit, here. I’d never hold him responsible for something someone else has done, even if it’s his own flesh-and-blood. But not to tell me? Not to prepare me, given what happened to my family in Katrina? Not to protect me, in case it got out who Mr. Anonymous was, which it obviously has!”
“How did you find out?” Corlis demanded.
“What does it matter how? The fact is that it did get out. What am I going to tell my family? That I want to marry a man who wouldn’t come clean about his family’s involvement in a tragedy that has wounded the Antonellis for all time? How was that going to work?” she demanded. “How can I ever trust a guy who dives underground whenever bad things happen?” Her voice had begun to shake and tears rimmed her eyelids. “He didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me he was leaving town right after the story was published. He had to know what an impact it was going to have on me and on my family and others like mine who’d lost loved ones! And then not to assume I’d be trying to get a hold of him afterward—”
Corlis cut in, protesting, “The paper’s lawyers forbade Jack to tell anyone except his editor about the more explosive parts of his reporting once he’d nailed down all the facts. He couldn’t risk maligning anyone until he could prove certain aspects, along with confirming with several other sources to back it all up. And maybe his exhaustion from all that prompted his very bad judgment to leave town without telling you, I agree! But trust me, it does matter how you found out. There were very few people who knew what was in the final version of the pieces that ran last week, including me! Who told you?”
“Take a wild guess.”
“Serena, stop playing games! Tell me! We’ll never be able to sort this out if you don’t level with me.”
Corlis was in Commando Mode and Serena could see how upset all this was making her as well. She’d come to Antonelli’s to see if she could help, and Serena owed her at least an explanation.
“Okay. Here’s what happened,” she murmured, staring at the half-completed sketch on her drawing board. She looked up to meet Corlis’ questioning gaze and described the scene when Lauren Hilbert and her sorority sister came to Antonelli’s under the guise of wanting to order a costume.
“Oh, glory, not her Woman Scorned Act again!” Corlis declared with disgust. “That drama queen just never gives up, does she? Who did you say was with her?”
“I dunno. I never saw her before in my life. Judy Somebody. A Theta.”
“They’re the snobby ones at Tulane?”
“They were all kind of snobby,” Serena declared unable to keep ancient resentments out of her voice. “At least the ones I knew back then. Meanwhile, Lauren delighted in telling me Jack had told her that the uncle he was named for worked at the Army Corp when the walls were being built. She said that all of New Orleans had always suspected Jacques Durand was involved in the design of the walls that failed. She was positively ghoulish, wondering how my family would react, knowing someone in his family guaranteed my brother and his wife’s death by drowning.”
“What bullshit, pardon my French!” Corlis exclaimed. “Lauren’s hardly ever read a newspaper in her life, and she didn’t just ‘happen’ to come here with her pal and ‘happen’ to know who Jack’s anonymous source was. Protocol says sources’ identities must be scrupulously protected—or insiders will never come forth to blow any whistles on the bad guys. Lauren must have found out from someone very high up at the T-P who leaked it to her and she figured what a great way to get back at you!”
“Maybe Jack was the one who told her!” Serena retorted.
Corlis stared at her.
“You don’t mean that,” the journalist said, her eyes flashing. “For God’s sake, Serena, you’ve got to know Jack wouldn
’t do a thing like that! He’s one of the most honest reporters left alive in our business, and that’s saying a lot!”
“Oh, jeez,” Serena apologized. “I didn’t mean that.”
Corlis softened. “Of course you didn’t. Look, Serena, Lauren Hilbert wants to hurt you and Jack, and especially Jack for dumping her—which he did, thank you, Jesus! Look, her Daddy knows everybody in town. Maybe he found out from some T-P brass who’s a member of his country club, or something.”
“That’s how it often works in New Orleans,” Serena agreed bitterly.
“Well, one thing I can tell you is that Lauren got very weird after Katrina and dealing with all those deaths at Charity Hospital during the evacuation. There were rumors some of the patients were... well... speeded on their way to heaven, so to speak. It must have been a horrible experience and I have no idea if Lauren witnessed that or was even a party to it... but even so,” Corlis said grimly, “now I truly think she’s gone off her nut!”
“Well,” Serena replied, “she succeeded in her goals to throw me under the bus, but that still doesn’t change the fact that Jack didn’t warn me beforehand what he’d discovered about the link between our families. I can’t be with a guy who does that. Maybe he loves me, but he didn’t trust me to keep my mouth shut, however hard it would have been. Now, I have to keep a secret, too, from my whole family, and I won’t be able to have him in my life anymore to help me bear knowing what I now know about his uncle!”
She would have done anything not to dissolve in tears in front of Corlis, but a wave of grief and misery had grabbed her by the throat. She buried her face in her hands, elbows on her drafting table, and wept openly.
In two strides, Corlis arrived by her side and threw her arms around her shoulders, murmuring, “Oh, sweetie... I am so sorry this has happened to the both of you. What a holy mess... but we’ll think of something we can do to fix this,” she assured her. “Just speak to Jack, will you? The guy is ready to jump off the Huey P. Long Bridge.”